A special court handling cases investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has given a two-year prison sentence to B. Muthaiah, a former Chief Manager at Indian Bank, M. Azeez, a former Assistant General Manager at Indian Bank’s Thousand Lights Branch, and A. Manohar Prasad, the Joint Managing Director of Gemini Pictures Circuit Private Ltd. in Virugambakkam. They were found guilty in a bank fraud case.
The CBI initiated the case in June 1998 based on a complaint from Indian Bank. The allegation was that M. Gopalakrishnan, who was the Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Bank at the time, A.V. Shanmugasundaram, who served as the Deputy General Manager at Indian Bank’s Zonal Office, along with Muthaiah and Azeez, conspired with other private individuals. They were accused of submitting fake documents to secure loans and failing to repay the borrowed amount, causing a loss of ₹8.35 crore to the bank.
Following the investigation, a charge-sheet was filed in December 2001 against the accused before a Special Judge assigned to CBI cases. During the trial, Gopalakrishnan, Shanmugasundaram, and A. Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was the Managing Director of a private company, passed away, resulting in the charges against them being dropped.
The trial court found the remaining three accused guilty and convicted them. In addition, the court imposed a fine of ₹9 lakh on Gemini Pictures Circuit Pvt. Ltd. in Virugambakkam and ₹2 lakh on M/s Asian Photo Films Pvt. Ltd. in Mylapore.
